Homily for the First Sunday in Advent, Year
B, 2017. Mark 13:33-37
AIM: To help the hearers understand the riches of
the Mass.
“Be watchful!” Jesus tells us in the
gospel. “Be alert!” That is the message of Advent, a word which means “coming.”
In Advent we are alert and watchful for three
comings of the Lord: his first coming at Bethlehem,
in weakness (as every baby is weak) and in obscurity: the only people who
showed up to celebrate were some shepherds, and three crackpot astrologers from
God knows where. Advent also reminds us to be watchful and alert for Christ’s
final coming at the end of time, in an event so powerful that everyone will
know that history’s last hour has struck. And between these there is a third, intermediate coming, here and now.
Like his
first coming at Bethlehem,
it is hidden and obscure. Yet like Christ’s final coming, this intermediate coming
is a thing of power. It is what Jesus had in mind when he told us: “Anyone who
loves me will be true to my word, and my Father will love him; we will come to
him and make our dwelling with him” (Jn. 14:23).
Let me start with the question –
Why
do we worship?
We do not celebrate the liturgy for
personal inspiration or uplift; to give us or others a nice warm feeling inside
or “a meaningful worship experience,” to use modern jargon. Those things may
happen, or they may not. None of them, however, is the purpose of our worship.
St. Thomas Aquinas places worship under the heading of justice. It is something
we owe to God, who has given us
everything we have and are – our sins excepted: they are all our own. The
Preface to each of the Eucharistic Prayers expresses this truth when it says:
“It is truly right and just, our duty
and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, Lord, holy Father,
almighty and eternal God.”
Sometimes people complain that they
don’t “get anything” out of Mass.
The proper answer to that is: “So what?” We’re not here to get. We’re here to give – to give thanks, to praise and
adore. The liturgy turns us away from self, toward God. And only when God is at
the center of our lives can we have any chance at true happiness and fulfillment.
St. Augustine tells
us why when he says – and he was speaking from his own experience: “You have
made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in
you.” Or, to put it in terms which young people today understand best: We are
hard-wired for God.
Note how we begin Mass: “In the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” I can never say those
words without being inwardly moved. They remind us that we gather in the name
of a God whose inner law is self-giving love: the Father pours out his love for
the Son; the Son returns this love to the Father; and the love that binds them
together is the Holy Spirit. As we begin Mass we are drawn into this love, into
God.
But which of us is worthy to stand
before the all-holy God? That is why we immediately confess our sins. “Lord,
have mercy,” we pray. We appeal to God because we can never rid ourselves of
sin on our own. Only God can do that. After that comes every Sunday, except in
Advent and Lent, the Gloria, the great hymn of praise to God. This is followed
by the opening prayer of the Mass, called the Collect, because it collects the
petitions of each of us, and offers them to God.
Then we sit down to listen to the word
of God, messages from a world very different from this one, our true homeland.
When we come to the gospel we stand, acknowledging that now Jesus himself is
speaking to us: calling us back to him when we have strayed, filling our mouths
with laughter and our tongues with joy (to quote the psalmist), when the
sunshine of God’s love shines upon us. In the Creed which follows we profess
our Christian and Catholic faith. The Petitions which follow remind us that ours
is not a private, me-and-God religion. We are members of a family, taught by
Jesus in the one prayer he gave us to say not “My Father, but “Our Father.”
We move on then to the Offertory. But what
can we offer God? He needs nothing. He is, as the theologians say, “sufficient
unto himself.” The fourth weekday Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer says: “You
have no need of our praise, yet our thanksgiving is itself your gift, since our
praises add nothing to your greatness, but profit us for salvation.” Thanksgiving
profits us for salvation, because the act of giving thanks involves an
acknowledgement that we are God’s creatures, dependent on him at every moment
for our continued existence. And whatever we give to God, without any thought
of return is not lost. It comes back to us, transformed.
The transformation of our gifts takes
place in the Eucharistic prayer or Consecration. It begins with the Sanctus or
Holy, Holy, in which we pray that “our voices may join with theirs” – with the
angels whom Isaiah at his call heard singing “Holy” three times over, because
God, though one, is three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The
priest then prays for the descent of the Holy Spirit on the bread and wine we
have offered. He recites the narrative of the Last Supper, using Jesus’ own words.
And the bread and wine are transformed, invisibly but truly, into the body and
blood of our crucified and risen Lord. Jesus himself is truly present. Present
also is the sacrifice he offered at the Last Supper and consummated on Calvary. This means that spiritually we are truly there: in
the Upper Room with Jesus and his apostles, and with Mary and the beloved
disciple at the cross, with but one exception: we cannot see him with our
bodily eyes, but we do see him with the eyes of faith – and seeing, we adore.
Following the Communion, the Mass
closes with the blessing; and then perhaps the most important word of all,
apart from Jesus’ words over the bread and wine: the little word, Go.
Go
forth, the Mass is ended.
Go
and announce the Gospel of the Lord.
Go
in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.
Go
in peace.
So much
beauty, so much drama, so much holiness, so much joy! Do we ever stop to
realize it, and truly worship?
Let me close with a personal testimony.
I have wanted to be a priest since I was twelve years old. I’ve never wanted
anything else. What drew me to priesthood above all was the Mass. Every time I served Mass, from age
twelve onward, I thought: One day I’ll
stand there. I’ll wear those vestments. I’ll say those words. On the 4th
of April next year it was be 65 years since that boyhood dream was fulfilled.
It was wonderful then. It is, if possible, even more wonderful today.
When I climb the steps to the altar, I
think often of God’s words to Moses at the burning bush: “Take off your shoes
from your feet; for the place where you stand is holy ground.” In India, which I
have visited twice, the priest does that literally. Before every Mass I celebrated
in India,
I removed my shoes.
I’m
not ashamed to tell you, friends, that many times, as I bow to kiss the altar
at the start of Mass, there are tears in my eyes, and a catch in my throat as I
think: This is what I have wanted to do
since I was twelve years old. If you ever notice me breaking off in the
middle of a sentence, unable to go on, that’s the reason.
When
I look around, I see men in their thirties and beyond who still don’t know what
to do with the one life that God has given each of us. And I have the privilege
of doing what I’ve always wanted to do – something of which no man is worthy –
not the holiest priest you know, not the bishop, not even the Pope; a privilege
extended to us not because we’re good enough, but because God loves us; and because
he wants to use us to serve and to feed you, his holy people, from these twin
tables of word and sacrament.
Do you understand now why I tell you
again, as I have told you so many times before, that I say every day, more
times than I could ever tell you: “Lord, you’re so good to me. And I’m so
grateful.”
Friends,
if I were to die tonight, I would die a happy man.
